


Lightning Crashes

by xxx_cat_xxx



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, Me projecting my Endgame feelings on Peter, Not A Fix-It, Post-Endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 14:13:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18812560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxx_cat_xxx/pseuds/xxx_cat_xxx
Summary: “Hey Morgan,” Peter whispers, “You want to come and sit with me?”





	Lightning Crashes

And then.

And then it’s the night after and all Peter can feel is numbness. He hasn’t cried since the Reversal, since the day he came back to life just to be killed all over again. Hasn’t gotten any real sleep since, either. Tonight is no exception.

He and May stayed over after the funeral, at the wooden house that is so unlike anything the Tony Stark of five years ago would have wanted to live in, and yet has his shadow lurking in every corner. A pair of sneakers in the wardrobe, a screwdriver in the drawer of the nightstand, a post-it with a scribbled line of code taped to the desk.

Peter lies still until May’s breaths turn deep and even, telling himself that tonight he will sleep, but then the silence becomes suffocating, too much to bear. Tony’s absence is so strong that it is almost tangible.

He glides out of the bed, tiptoes across the room and out of the open door.

The staircase is calm and dimly lit, a low electric hum running through it that Peter can only pick up because of his enhanced hearing skills, a proof that the house is Tony’s after all. Its soul is a machine hidden somewhere under all the wood, a core that powers the lights and the security systems and the AI and who knows what else. 

Peter sits down on the steps, his body heavy and numb.

There’s a photograph of Tony and Pepper on the wall, a wedding picture, but not an official one. It’s a little blurred, Pepper’s hair open and wild, swinging with the movement of her body. Her stomach is visibly swollen under the white dress. Tony is holding her waist with one hand, the other locked into hers, both spinning around in the middle of a dance move.

There’s the same tiredness in the lines of Tony’s face that has been there ever since Peter knew him, but his smile his wide and happy, his eyes shining with love.

_And now he’s gone._

The pain hits so hard that it squeezes the air out of Peter’s lungs. He gaps, clasping his hands into his thighs until it hurts. _I can’t do this again._

There’s a noise behind him on top of the staircase. Peter twists to see the little girl standing at the landing. She is crying the way kids cry sometimes, silent tears leaking out of her eyes and dropping down onto her pyjamas, her whole body shaking. There’s something in her arms, red and golden. An Iron Man plush toy.

_Oh god._

“Hey Morgan,” Peter whispers, “You want to come and sit with me?”

She shuffles down, two footsteps for each stair, clutching the soft toy to her chest. She settles a few inches away from Peter, regarding him cautiously. The tears have turned into whimpers and sniffles. Peter uses the sleeves of his pyjamas to dry off her cheeks, then softly strokes the brown hair out of her face.

“You’re in Daddy’s picture,” she mumbles, her voice hoarse from crying. Peter knows the one she’s talking about, has seen it on the kitchen shelf, his heart growing warm and cold simultaneously when he thought of the guilt Tony must have felt each time he looked at it. “He says you’re gone.”

“I-I was gone, Morgan. Mr. St- Your daddy brought me back.”

She considers this for a while, chewing on the plush Iron Man’s helmet. Then she looks up at Peter with those sharp dark eyes. Tony’s eyes. “Can you bring Daddy back?”

And Peter breaks, right there on the stairs of his mentor’s house. He tries to hold back his tears, tries to keep his face straight the way Tony would have done in front of his daughter, but it’s impossible.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes, “I’m so, so sorry, Morgan. I can’t - I can’t bring him back. I wish I could.”

She doesn’t hold his hand or offer her plush toy or does anything else to comfort him, doesn’t tell him it’s okay, because it’s not, it really isn’t. It’s just unfair. And she’s just another lonely child, and even though she is too young to grasp the gravitude of it all, the world has already torn a hole into her soul.

They sit on the staircase until Peter’s sobs die down and Morgan falls asleep with her head on his lap, dark fanned out lashes contrasting with the paleness of her skin.

There they are, two children in a house full of ghosts. And there it is, the world that took their father away.

**Author's Note:**

> I am sorry. I'll try to write something happier soon, but this time, it just wasn't happening. 
> 
> [My tumblr.](https://xxx-cat-xxx.tumblr.com/)


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